


Duty and Family

by thatotherperv



Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Family, Gen, Pre-Canon, a moment in canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-12
Updated: 2007-10-12
Packaged: 2017-11-01 23:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatotherperv/pseuds/thatotherperv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A memory.  Duty and family...sometimes you have to choose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Duty and Family

**Author's Note:**

> dude, if you asked me where this came from, I wouldn't be able to tell you. one little line in one ep, and my brain barfed this thing out.
> 
> _“So did you talk to your dad at all before you called the cops?”  
>  “No, why would I?”  
>  “Well I haven’t seen my dad in a long time, and if I had the opportunity to talk….” [he flinches over his tooth and changes the subject]  
>  \--Booth and Brennan, s2 “The Killer in the Concrete”_
> 
> Original post [here](http://thatotherperv.livejournal.com/181363.html)

The dark scent of pipe smoke clung to the room. Seeley thought it always would. His father didn’t smoke a pipe anymore (at least not while anyone was looking), but the smell still permeated the room. The walls, the curtains, the fabric of the sofa and armchair…it clung to them like an old man wishing for better times.

It made him feel small. Like a child who couldn’t possibly understand the world. He wasn’t. Not that day, not now, though the memory of that scent still humbles him, and makes him doubt himself in the small hours.

“You’re a fool, boy.”

Seeley flinched, but drew himself up. He wasn’t a boy. At 22, he was a man by all counts. The Army had done that. Seeley had done that.

“No, sir, I’m not. I just want to serve my country.”

“You want to kill. Seeley, I told you when you joined up, those people will suck you dry. They will use you to fight their wars, throw you into the jungle and leave you—”

“It’s mostly deserts these days, Dad. No jungles.”

“Don’t you sass me under my own roof. Don’t you dare.”

He was a man, but the tone of his father’s voice, the narrow of his eyes…still had to power to send a thrill of fear through him. _Get the belt, Seeley. I didn’t want to have to do this…._

He averted his eyes. “No, sir. I’m sorry. I was just trying to make a joke.”

“This is no joking matter, is it? Sniper training. They want to turn my boy into a weapon. It’s against God, Seeley. Thou shalt not kill. _Thou shalt not kill._ I thought I taught you better.”

“Sometimes it’s…. Yes, sir.”

“When’s the last time you been to mass?”

Truthfully, at that moment, he couldn’t remember. His pang of guilt was magnified by his father’s glaring disapproval. “It’s been a while.”

“Tomorrow. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

It was a startling thing to watch his father unravel before his eyes, but he did. The anger seeped out quickly, and as a calloused hand rubbed his bum leg (the leg that pained him constantly, the leg that would never heal…the _physical_ scar from Vietnam…), Seeley tried to pretend that his dad’s eyes didn’t grow damp.

“Don’t do this, Seeley. I didn’t raise you to do this. I raised you to be a good man.”

“You did. And I’m trying.”

“They’ll use you up, boy. It’s what they do. They’ll use you up until you’re trash.”

“I know, Pop. But I won’t let them.”

In the silence that followed, Seeley would have given anything to hear his father laugh. That surprised, explosive sound, deep and rolling.

“If you do this, I’ll never be able to look at you without seeing what they’ll make you. A killer. It’s a sin, Seeley, and you’re asking for it. I don’t know how I can…. I don’t know how I can look at you, if you do that.”

Seeley’s head dipped. “Yeah, Pop. I know.”


End file.
